Peter Som

Peter Som has really loosened up. That's been a work in progress for a few seasons now, but this was the show where you really felt like a threshold had been crossed, and that Som was no longer suppressing an instinct for fussiness, but rather had let go of the fussiness altogether. This wasn't a perfect collection, but it had a sense of genuine ease. In large part, that was a credit to Som's silhouettes, which erred toward the relaxed; even his pencil skirts seemed to have some give to them. The emphasis of the collection was on draped dresses and low-slung, wide-leg trousers, their fluidity a counterpoint to the hard, optical motifs at work in the fabrics. Elsewhere, Som went proper gritty, turning out pairs of tweed shorts with raw hems that looked like vintage suit trousers hacked up by skaters. His taut crop tops had a similarly rebellious quality, and you couldn't help wishing he'd pushed that attitude a touch harder, rather than leaning so much on the sculpted sweatshirt and T-shirt shapes that are starting to look a little un-fresh. Even so, this was an easy collection to like and, better yet, a collection full of pieces that Som fans will find easy to wear.